We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lee Friedman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lee, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The idea for Mango Tree — a go-to resource for family travel planning — started, quite honestly, in a moment of travel planning frustration.

I had two small kids and a demanding career as a litigator. I still wanted to travel, but the logistics suddenly felt exhausting. What used to be energizing—researching destinations, mapping out itineraries—started to feel like just another thing on my to-do list. I kept asking myself: Why is it so hard to plan a trip that’s both great for my kids and actually enjoyable for me too?

Then came a trip to Cartagena, Colombia. It wasn’t perfect, but it was eye-opening. We stayed in a small boutique hotel that made us feel incredibly welcome—they remembered our kids’ names, served us breakfast in the courtyard, and didn’t bat an eye when my daughter played with seashells at the table. That hotel set the tone for the whole trip. It reminded me that family travel doesn’t have to mean compromising on style, comfort, or experience. It just has to be thoughtfully planned.

That was the spark. I looked around and saw that most “family travel” advice revolved around resorts with kids’ clubs and water slides. But what if a parent wanted something different? A boutique hotel. A trip with character. A travel experience that felt like them, not just a checklist for the kids. No one was making that easy—so I decided I would.

Mango Tree Travel was born from that gap. It combines my love of travel, my personal experience as a mom, and my empathy for busy, working professional parents who simply can’t do it all. I knew it would work because I wasn’t alone. I kept meeting parents who wanted to travel meaningfully with their kids but didn’t know where to start. They didn’t need more hotel options—they needed a filter. A guide. A travel-savvy mom who’d already done the research and could say, “Here’s what’s worth your time, and here’s how to make it easy.”

That’s what excites me most: giving parents the confidence to travel the way they actually want to. Not just the safe or obvious choice—but the trip they’ll still be talking about years later.

Lee, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Absolutely. I am a corporate-litigator-turned-travel-entrepreneur. I live in Washington, DC with my husband and two kids, and after more than 15 years as a litigation attorney, I made the leap to build a business that blends my passion for travel, my obsession with planning and deep-dive research, and my desire to help families say yes to the kind of travel they really want to do.

Mango Tree Travel offers several ways to help families plan travel. We specialize in trips that include boutique and luxury family hotels — you know, those great properties that have a real sense of place, but also some aspect that makes travel easier for parents with kids. Our clients are often looking for something more than a generic “family-friendly” resort—they want curated trips that reflect their values, interests, and parenting style.

We meet parents wherever they are in their family travel journey. For parents who love to do most of the planning themselves, but want to cut through the noise, we have a library of boutique family hotels they can browse to find a perfect match without spending countless hours crafting the right google search. For parents who cringe at the idea of planning a trip from start to finish — or who perhaps used to love it but find themselves needing to outsource — we offer full service family trip planning. We can help match families with the right hotels, plan activities, or curate a custom luxury itinerary. Our most popular destinations are in the Caribbean, Central America, and Europe,

What sets Mango Tree apart is that we lead with the parent’s experience first. We believe that family travel should feel enjoyable and restorative—not just exhausting and chaotic. So we help our clients make choices that create meaningful moments for everyone, not just the kids. We also know that “luxury” looks different for every family. For some, it’s a beachfront suite with room to breathe. For others, it’s a small jungle lodge that makes your picky eater pancakes with chocolate chips. Either way, we believe parents deserve great travel experiences—yes, even with kids in tow.

What I’m most proud of is the way our brand makes parents feel. We’re not here to pressure anyone to “do it all.” We’re here to help them realize they can travel in a way that feels true to who they are now, as parents and as people. I get emails every week from moms saying, “I didn’t think we could pull off a trip like this—but you made me believe we could.”

That’s the heart of Mango Tree. We help families take the trips they didn’t think were possible—and make them their new standard.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Mango Tree Travel started as a side hustle while I was still practicing law full-time. I’d hit a bit of a lull in my legal career—partly because I was stuck at home during COVID, disconnected from the fast-paced work life I once loved. I had just had my second baby, and I was trying to bring travel back into my life in a way that made sense as a mom of two.

At first, I told colleagues it was just a blog—which was true. But deep down, I knew I was building more than that. I was starting a company. A big turning point came when I started being honest about that—to myself and to others. I never hid the work I was doing. I made it clear it was a side project, and I made sure it never impacted my legal clients. If I was scouting hotels in the Caribbean, I was also taking client calls from the road and writing briefs on the plane. It was a grind—especially with a toddler and kindergartener at home—but I kept showing up for both careers.

Eventually, my boss asked me point blank: “What’s the plan here? Can you really succeed at two careers at once?” I realized the answer was no. And once I knew that, I told him the truth and took a leap—before Mango Tree was financially ready. But I haven’t looked back. Being honest at every step made the transition feel grounded, and more than anything, I’m proud of how I handled that season of doing triple duty as a mom, a lawyer, and a budding entrepreneur. But boy was it exhausting!

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

The best source of new clients for Mango Tree in it’s first three years was SEO and our travel blog. I wanted to ceate awesome family travel content that would really speak to parents who had felt some of the same challenges as me trying to plan unique family trips. I learned SEO and traveled on my own dime, with my kids, around the Caribbean to establish my expertise. And we wrote about it! From there, the clients started to roll in with trip planning requests. Most travel planners build their books of business first and foremost through friends and referrsals. We did it completely differently, with most of our clients in the first two years being parents who found us while researching their family trips and found our content and approach to family travel really resonated with them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mangotreetravel.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mango_tree_travel/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mangotreefamilytravel/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lee-turner-friedman/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MangoTreeTravel/videos